


(when you just can’t take) the heavy weight of living

by FallenStar22



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Dead Laura Hale, Gen, Hale Family Feels, Hurt Derek Hale, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Parent(s), Post-Hale Fire (Teen Wolf), Stiles Stilinski Comforts Derek Hale, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29262798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenStar22/pseuds/FallenStar22
Summary: Set when Derek comes back to the Hale House for the first time after the fire and when he finds Laura’s body. Sometimes I remember he’s still just a kid who was forced to flee home when his family was murdered by his girlfriend - he’s allowed to be a ball of angst.Pretend it was Laura’s upper body that was found by the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department, Derek waited a few days before coming after Laura, and that Deaton figured Scott out straight away.TW: suicidal thoughts
Relationships: Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	(when you just can’t take) the heavy weight of living

**Author's Note:**

> For Dani, who immediately asked me when I was going to write a Sterek fic when he found out I was watching it. Sorry, this one’s a bit sad but I promise I’ll write you a happier one. 
> 
> And for anyone who needs someone to talk to:  
> 116 123 (UK)  
> 1800-273-8255 (US)

The Beacon Hills Veterinary Clinic phone starts ringing while Deaton is carefully extracting shards of glass from Scott’s palms and soles from where he accidentally landed outside a broken window. In the time it took for Stiles to find him and drag him to Deaton’s, his skin had started healing over the deeper ones. They’d already been at it for over an hour and Stiles was going out of his mind watching his buddy whimpering in pain every time Deaton had to slice open his skin to extract the embedded fragments. 

Stiles slips out of the room, being careful to close the door softly behind him. The phone is still ringing as he tiptoes to the desk and he doesn’t hesitate before grabbing it off the receiver just in case the caller gives up and cuts the line early. Anyone who wanted help with a non-supernatural matter wouldn’t be calling the landline past midnight. “Hello?” he whispered, hoping Scott’s pain would distract him from listening into their conversation. 

Stiles hears a couple of quiet sobs and then a shuddery inhale, before a hoarse voice says, “Please. Tell me what to do. You’re the emissary, aren’t you? I know you spoke to my sister, and now she’s dead but I don’t know who else to talk to. My mum-” another sob- “I know she trusted you. Please.” The person on the other end of the call had managed to control their crying, but Stiles could hear their short shallow breaths. “There’s nobody left for me to live for.”

Stiles’ heart crumbles as his knees buckle and his back slides down the filing cabinet. “Stay with me. Take a deep breath and focus on your breathing.” Stiles scrambles to remember everything the counsellor said to him at the hospital when his mum died. “You’re gonna be okay. Breathe with me.” His breath catches unexpectedly as he takes a deep inhale, remembering the last time he did this. He pushes the memory aside and focuses on a few cycles of slow inhales and exhales, hearing the person on the phone finally start to stabilise their breathing in sync with his. Right, airways, check, what was the next thing you were supposed to do in situations like this- danger shit, danger was the first thing he was supposed to check for. How was he supposed to check for dangerous things on the phone? “Uh there aren’t any, um, where are you?”

“What?” The other person’s confusion comes through the call as if they weren’t sure if this was a trap or not. “I’m at the- house.”

Right, that was helpful, the house, which fucking house. Oh. There were only two houses in Beacon Hills with names - Eichen House, while likely to have someone who wanted to commit suicide, would be unlikely to call a veterinary clinic for help, and Hale House. As in Laura Hale, the woman who had been brutally murdered a few days ago in the woods. Laura Hale, who, alongside her younger brother Derek, were the only survivors of a fire that had killed their entire family. Oh man. This night was getting heavier by the minute. 

“I’m on my way, please stay there.” Stiles starts edging his way up to standing again, and slips out of the stable door. “If you start having thoughts, just think about five things you can hear, four things you can touch, three things you can see, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.” When the cord is stretched as far as it can go, Stiles drops the phone and starts running to his jeep, whispering apologies to Scott for abandoning him. “Sorry buddy, but if Deaton’s helping you, then someone needs to be helping him.”

In the minutes it takes him to drive to the Hale House, Stiles’ thoughts drift back to when mum died, to the months when his dad wandered around the house like a broken man- when he was broken. Stiles may not have the experience of an emissary, or whatever the fuck that was, but he has grief. And it’s grief that causes him to put his foot down on the gas as he fights the tears making their way down his face. He had Scottie, he had Ms McCall, he had his dad, and he still felt lonely. 

When he finally gets there, the house looks worse than he imagined from the case file. It’s not a blackened ruin, telling the story of a family destroyed to pieces. It’s whole, looming like a shadow, the moonlight catching on the edges of scorched beams. There’s just enough left to think it’s worth rescuing without knowing how little remains inside. 

Stiles gently pushes open the front door, wincing at the lingering smell of smoke. He can’t see much, but doesn’t need to see to hear the crunch the leaves make under his feet, to feel the unevenness of debris littering the floor. This is no longer a home; it’s a carcass. 

It takes him a while to find Derek - he’s sitting on the floor in a room that must have been the lounge, ignoring the dusty looking couch to prop himself up against a wall. His limbs are long and splayed out in a position of defeat and his head rolled back to rest on the wall, eyes closed in a way that almost makes him look peaceful.

Stiles scours the floor for anything Derek could hurt himself with, pills, a razor, a knife, but the floorboards are empty except for deep gorges that could only be made by a werewolf. He’s collecting more pieces of the puzzle but so far none of them fit together. Stiles has questions, so many questions, but this is not the time for them. He approaches Derek carefully, but asides from blinking his eyes open, Derek doesn’t move. There are dried tear tracks on his face, still slightly shiny. “You’re not the emissary.” A small exhale that could almost be a laugh escapes Derek as he shakes his head. 

Stiles didn’t have a plan for when he got here, he just knew it was important for Derek to not be alone. “I could be,” he replies indignantly. “Don’t let this pretty face distract you.” 

After a minute, Derek lifts his head and says, “I remember you. In the Sheriff’s station. Just after the fire.” He continues staring at Stiles, cataloguing the differences between then and now.

“My dad’s the Sheriff, so.” Stiles digs his thumbs into his jean pockets, tipping forward onto his tiptoes and back again. 

Derek shuts his eyes again and squeezes them tightly. “I never thought I’d come back here again.”

“What made you come back?”

“Laura. She came to investigate something, the emissary-” he raises his eyebrows at Stiles- “the real emissary, called her but then she didn’t come back.” He didn’t need to finish the story, Stiles knew he must have come back home to find his older sister, his only remaining family, murdered and cut in half, with her body carelessly discarded in the woods near the memories that haunted him at night. 

Stiles slips into the space beside Derek, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it as he says, “I’m sorry, nothing I can say now will make this shitty situation better, but things will get better, I promise. But please don’t die on me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you took one look at this glorious body and decided to off yourself.” 

Derek doesn’t exactly smile, but the frown on his face breaks as he releases his breath in slow, shuddering sobs. Stiles pulls Derek into his chest as cries, soothing his hands over Derek’s back until he’s calm enough to speak. 

“I don’t wanna die. But- she was all I had left.” Derek finally relaxes his head onto Stiles’ shoulder, and Stiles slides his arm around Derek’s neck, tugging him in closer and hoping that Derek knows that for these few minutes at least, he is safe. 

“You have me. And Scott, who’s also a werewolf so you can do wolfy stuff with him-” Derek lifts his head up shoots him a side eye in surprise, to which Stiles raises his eyebrows at the claw marks on the floor- “and Deaton, who’s the real emissary. I’m sure he’s bound to help you or something.” Stiles keeps his hands on Derek, who seems marginally more relaxed than when Stiles first touched him. He’s a tactile person, he can’t help himself. 

The cry seems to have improved Derek’s mood because he quips, “Unlike you, who just goes round helping strangers anyway.” 

Stiles twists Derek’s head so he can look into Stiles’ eyes as he says, “I’m glad I did.”


End file.
